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Researchers traced owners credit on the basis of raw metadata

Jan

31

2015

Only four raw data based on metadata from credit card payments are sufficient to identify a person, without regard to specific information such as name, address or credit card number. That enable researchers from MIT.

Based on only four basic data such as the date of a transaction and the location could reduce the researchers to 90 percent of the credit card owners. The researchers at MIT used a database of transactions of 1.1 million holders of a credit card. The file covered transactions over a period of three months, reports ZDnet.

If the amount of credit card transactions will be included as one of three metadata sets, according to the MIT researchers were even more people can be identified. Also, in the ‘dilute’ the amount of data or the monitored period would still be traced back many people are on the basis of the raw transaction data, to an average of 70 percent.

According to the researchers show that even with the basic data of credit card transactions by people, for example, secret services can be easily reduced, despite the fact that anonymity is guaranteed seems at first glance in the relevant metadata. The MIT scientists therefore argue that it is up to politicians to determine how long metadata such as credit card transactions must be kept.